Komodo Resort & Diving Club — Hotel in East Nusa Tenggara

Best part of the stay This is an absolutely underrated gem. The resort is situated on the island of Sebayur (45 minutes by boat) from Labuan Bajo (Flores airport) and in addition to being the gateway to a UNESCO Heritage site, has an incredible house reef teeming with life.

Getting there- We stayed at Bali overnight and took a morning flight to Labuan Bajo (Flores Island) via Batik AiThe resort arranges for an airport pickup. If you arrive early, you can stay at the resort office in Labuan Bajo near the port. The staff there were very friendly and attentive. A private speed boat to Sebayur departs around midday and the staff will get you to the boat on time.

The island- The highlight of the island is the reef and as I mentioned above, it is amazing. Not so much schools as clouds of fish in every direction. There can be quite a bit of tourist traffic through this area and I had tamped down my expectations as a result but it was probably the best house reef I have seen. The resort also offers a guided night snorkel expedition and I would highly recommend it as well although it may not be everyone's cup of tea. In 7 days of snorkeling, I saw turtles, several species of damselfish and angelfish, titan triggerfish, Moorish idols, grouper (night snorkel), blue clawed lobster (night snorkel), batfish, wrasse, coral trout, parrotfish, surgeonfish and sweet lips to name just a few. It's also nice to canoe in the lsland waters. We took our 3 year old out for a paddle while she listened to her favourite Moana songs. Apart from the reef, it's also worth climbing to the top of the island to take in the sunrise over the bay.

Accommodation- The accommodation consists of individual raised Moana-style cabins. Right opposite each cabin and adjacent to the beach are a pair of pool lounger chairs under an umbrella, looking out over the water. Each cabin has a verandah with chairs, a small table, a drying rack and beanbag. The cabin itself has a king bed, a wooden cupboard with a safe and decent air conditioning. Wifi is decent at the dining area and near the jetty but is patchy at the cabin itself.

Food- For dining options, you have a large covered eating area, right on the beach opposite the jetty. The kitchen is open for breakfast (6 to 9), lunch (12 to 2) and dinner (6 to 9). Mostly the food was fresh and delicious with the exception of things such as ice cream. The lunch menu was a bit limited but the dinner menu is great. My highlights for the food were the beef rendang, pisang goreng, pizza, seafood basket, the dessert fruit platter and for my daughter, the pasta. There was also a small crate of old toys which provided my daughter with enough entertainment most nights and allowed us to eat our dinner in peace. There is a bar up near the waterfront and some comfy loungers to relax in.

Staff- The staff were just fantastic, always ready to lend a hand or get you what you need. Alex, the resort manager, was always available for a chat for any concerns or questions, as were Rifa and Claudia. The rest of the staff were great as well, so much so that my normally reserved 3 year old knew all of them on a first name basis and by the third day, would confidently walk up to any of them to take her to the jetty or to investigate a crab or some strange insect she had just found. The resort can also arrange for informal babysitting at 150000 Rp an hour and it was absolutely worth it, as it allowed both of us to go snorkeling together. I also wanted to thank the owners Joe and Julian who arrived on the third day of our stay and took the time to come and meet us and ask us if anything could be done to improve our stay. We are deeply indebted to Joe as she always made the time to accompany us on many snorkeling excursions on the house reef and always tried to find interesting things for us. She also accompanied my wife when they visited Manta point on a custom trip with the dive boat and it was a far better experience than the full day excursion, both in the lack of crowds and in the number of mantas they saw...

This was one of the best trips I’ve ever had. I’ve been to places like the Maldives, Bora Bora, and Hawaii, staying at top resorts like the Four Seasons, Waldorf Astoria, St. Regis, and Conrad. But this trip was truly special, and I definitely plan to come back.

The service at Komodo Resort was excellent. Every staff member was super friendly and really cared about making sure we had a great time. The service felt authentic not fake/forced. The dive guides were awesome, the restaurant staff (especially Offar and Ellen!) were great, the reception team was very helpful, and the guy who took us out to snorkel from the pier was also fantastic. Even the owner, Julian, came by during dinner to check in and chat with us, which was a nice touch. This is very much a boutique resort experience instead of the resorts with hundreds of rooms.

The location is amazing – you don’t really get how special it is until you’re there. Other people have to take long, bumpy speedboat rides every day from Labuan Bajo, but here, you’re already in the perfect spot on a peaceful private island with only about 25 rooms. It’s quiet and calm. Getting to the resort was a breeze as I sent the resort my flight arrival/deperature times and they organized someone to meet me at the airport and transport me as I had an arrival/deperature out of their compliemtnary hours.

Also, there is a beautiful view you can also walk up the hill behind villa 4/5 for a beautiful panoramic view – it’s only a 10-15 minute walk. Highly recommend this!

The house reef is just stunning. It’s super close to the beach, and most of it is only 2-5 meters deep, so you can see a lot just by snorkeling. The coral and marine life here are better than any house reef I’ve seen and even better than most dive sites I’ve visited outside Indonesia. The resort offers on demand complimentary boat rides to the edge of the reef, and then you can drift snorkel back – it takes about 20-35 minutes.

The beach is lovely with clear blue water. You can only go in chest-deep, though, because they want to protect the reef. You have to enter the reef from the pier. Still, it’s perfect for cooling off after sunbathing. It was the end of the 'rainy season' while we were here but there was only one slightly cloudy day with slight rain in the morning. The sun was out in full force no matter what. The benefits of this time is much less crowds in the park itself.

The rooms are super comfy with strong A/C, great beds, and pillows. The design mixes traditional Indonesian style with modern touches. The bathroom is big, with a separate shower area so things don’t get wet. Housekeeping kept everything clean and restocked water daily. Wi-Fi was very fast and seemed to cover the entire island. We stayed in villa 17, and the porch had a great view of the beach – perfect for watching the sunset and sunrise.

The food was tasty and felt like home-cooked meals. There’s a good variety for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I had the all-inclusive package, but the menu prices were very fair, as were the drinks. I am a very picky eater and had zero issues.

We did one excursion outside of diving – the full-day Komodo tour – and it was awesome. If you come all the way here, you have to do it. The views from Padar are crowded but totally worth it, and Pink Beach and seeing the Komodo dragons was also a very neat experience.

The diving was incredible. It was my first time diving in Indonesia, and it was better than anywhere else I’ve been. The coral, sea life, and everything underwater were just amazing. The dive guides and boat crew were great – especially Nando, who guided most of our dives. I did 11 dives, all in central Komodo. We skipped the north because of the strong currents and focused on wide-angle and macro photography sites in the central region. The dive shop is open to dive site requests too in order to avoid repeptive dive sites and I believe they organize groups by experience. The resort doesn’t go to the south yet, but they’re working on a boat that will.

Overall, I can’t wait...

This is a great place to stay when visiting Komodo national park, so I highly recommend it, but there are some things that need improvement.

The snorkelling off the beach is incredible - it felt like being in an aquarium, and we saw turtles several times and once a big ray. This is absolutely a good enough reason to stay here if you like snorkelling. The snorkelling half day tour was nice enough but the two spots - one for turtles and one for rays - weren’t nearly as good as the house reef, much deeper and busier and we didn’t see so much.

We’re not divers, and it would be good if a bit more attention was given to the activities of non-divers - eg briefings on snorkelling (best spots, what to look out for, info on tides and currents), kayaking (good routes, sunset spots to kayak to, tides), hiking (info about the amazing trek over the island). We had to figure this all out by trial and error. I recommend asking lots of questions to get the info you need early in your stay!

The full day national park speedboat tour was fine - a convenient way to see the main sights. The organisation wasn’t so good - no clear indications of how long we should be at each stop so some guests spent quite a bit of time hanging around waiting for each other. The way they run the tours is frustrating - there’s no proactive sharing of information about what tours are running when, it would be so easy to put up a board listing what they have definitely running in the coming days, and would run if eg two more people join.

The hike to the top of the island the hotel is on was a real highlight. It’s tough - took us over an hour and a half to the top and it was hot and steep. The views from the top are amazing and totally worth it. There’s a beach just off the path you can stop at on the way - I recommend leaving swimwear, snacks etc there and going to the top and then stopping at the beach for a while on the way back. (You can also kayak to this beach for sunset). It also looked like you could carry on hiking down the other side - would be great if the hotel offered to take you to the other end by boat and then you could walk back. Maybe ask!

The sunset spot is much nearer, maybe ten mins up, though worth walking a bit further across for a clearer sunset view.

Food - the daily specials served a la carte were usually delicious, the buffet food was fine. A lot of the food was fried or deep-fried. On our last night we saw someone order grilled fish, we’d have done that had the we known it was an option.

Rooms - we started in a new bungalow. These rooms have no dedicated beach loungers and there are no public ones, so if you stay in one of these rooms you have to sit on the sand if you want to sit on the beach. Then we moved to “private bungalow 1”, which was a misnomer, as the next door upstairs room looks directly onto its terrace and into the room - they put up a tarpaulin screen for us which solved the issue though obviously wasn’t very attractive! Also note the two private bungalows share a wall and noise carries across. If you can I suggest paying for the regular room type.

Massage - not great, masseuse was yawning and disengaged, room had peeling paint and ripped curtains, not a relaxing spa experience.

Overall - come for the snorkelling, ask lots of questions, know that you can...